Adrienne Rich (1929-2012), American poet, essayist. Enjoy!
Translations
You show me the poems of some woman
my age, or younger
translated from your languageCertain words occur: enemy, oven, sorrow
enough to let me know
she’s a woman of my timeobsessed
with Love, our subject:
we’ve trained it like ivy to our walls
baked it like bread in our ovens
worn it like lead on our ankles
watched it through binoculars as if
it were a helicopter
bringing food to our famine
or the satellite
of a hostile powerI begin to see that woman
doing things: stirring rice
ironing a skirt
typing a manuscript till dawntrying to make a call
from a phoneboothThe phone rings unanswered
in a man’s bedroom
she hears him telling someone else
Never mind. She’ll get tired.
hears him telling her story to her sister
who becomes her enemy
and will in her own time
light her own way to sorrowignorant of the fact this way of grief
is shared, unnecessary
and political
1972
From DIVING INTO THE WRECK (Norton, 1973)
O wow! She said it all here.
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Beautiful to read with plenty to think about
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This poem reminds me of a poem that I wrote called “Jealousy teach her something”. You are most welcome to visit my blog and have a look. 🙂
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Reblogged this on Nijava's blog.
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Lovely poem
Reblogged on http://www.amakaanozie.wordpress.com
‘I begin to see that woman
doing things: stirring rice
ironing a skirt
typing a manuscript till dawn’
Adrienne’s lady is an ordinary lady and great in that way.
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I love Adrienne Rich’s activism and social justice work, I really should get on poetry. This is my favorite line from the poem:
“ignorant of the fact this way of grief
is shared, unnecessary
and political”
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